


at mihi sentitur nix verno sole soluta

by kaserl



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26219422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaserl/pseuds/kaserl
Summary: Edward Little is depressed and reads Ovid'sTristiato copefor the@terror_exe prompt"Thomas Jopson/Edward Little, hurt/comfort, depression, poetry, pining"
Relationships: Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: @terror_exe Flash Fest





	at mihi sentitur nix verno sole soluta

**Author's Note:**

> My deepest thanks to [tulliolaciceronis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tulliolaciceronis) for betaing this and for dragging me into this fandom in the first place! Any and all remaining mistakes are entirely my own.
> 
> The footnotes link to translations of the Latin.

Edward flipped to a random page in his worn copy of Ovid’s _Tristia_ , looking at the words without really reading them. He knew them by heart anyway. He’d never much cared for poetry, or for the classics, though he knew them as well as he ought to, but since their return from the Arctic, he’d felt himself unable to read much else, though it had taken some time for his Latin to return to him. Something about the descriptions of being stranded in a cold and lonely place, with the constant threat of death, was comforting to him even as his own time in the Arctic haunted his dreams and his every waking minute. He had expected that once they left the Arctic, he would feel better—after all, it was only natural that in such circumstances he had felt constantly tired and stressed and unable to find joy even in the things he used to love—but even at home, where he was safe and able to rest, he found himself unable to muster up interest in much of anything.

Hence, reading the same book of poetry for the third time this week alone, since the effort it would take to read a different book sounded unfathomable. Edward had no idea how he’d walked the hundreds of miles to safety in this state. Sometimes, he wasn’t certain he had. There were days when he thought he might be hallucinating everything around him, not because it didn’t look and feel real, but because the idea that he’d made it back, made it home, was so strange that it seemed easier to believe that it was all a vivid hallucination, that he was dying in a tent somewhere on King William’s Island. That would certainly explain why he didn’t remember half of the walk out—though he knew that it could also be because there was so little to remember. Day after day had been filled with hauling, and hunger, and fear, so that every day blurred into the next and the only reason he cared about the passage of time was the awareness that a winter spent too far North without the shelter of the ships would be the death of them all.

Still, he ought to read something else. He would have the book of poetry memorized in a few weeks at this rate, and it wasn’t as if he was paying much attention to it anymore. He was looking at every word, yes, but only certain phrases caught his eye as he flipped past them, the phrases that drifted through his mind as he lay in bed, awake, unable to sleep even though he was also so tired that he thought he could sleep for a year straight. _Non sum ego qui fueram._ 1

Then again, Edward had never been a particularly cheerful person, had he? He’d been able to fake it well enough when he was required to, which was often, and he knew that sometimes his happiness had been genuine, but he couldn’t remember what that felt like. His skill at faking cheer when he couldn’t feel it had served him well for years, but now he thought it may be beginning to fail him. His siblings were cautious around him, now, in a way that they’d never been before. They were sympathetic, allowing him to remain at home instead of joining them in outings and making his excuses for him when he rose from bed in the early afternoon, talking in low tones about how he must still be tired about his ordeal, about how it was only natural that it might take some months to recover from years of exhaustion, about how he still hadn’t gained back all the weight he had lost, and would he like something to eat? Edward appreciated their concern, but the knowledge that he couldn’t hide how badly he was faring only made him feel worse.

He sighed and flipped back several pages, staring sightlessly at words he had nearly memorized: “Dum tamen et terris dubius iactabar et undis,/fallebat curas aegraque corda labor:/ut via finita est et opus requievit eundi,/et poenae tellus est mihi tacta meae,/nil nisi flere libet, nec nostro parcior imber/lumine, de verna quam nive manat aqua.”2

Edward had never thought he’d miss the Arctic. Never thought he’d miss the hauling, the hunger, the fear. But while he’d been there, the only thing he’d been able to think about was the next step, the next meal, the next command meeting at which all they would do was reaffirm that there was nothing they could do but keep hauling and hope that they’d come across game or help in time for those who were lying in the boats, too ill to walk or even to move. Edward didn’t know why they’d even had half of those command meetings, unless solely for the purpose of keeping the men’s morale up, making them think that command was doing something, that their officers had a plan to get them out.

They’d had no plan, not one that would have done them any good without their rescue arriving just in the nick of time for several of the sick. Instead, all they’d had was Le Vesconte’s idea, the one he’d talked Edward into supporting, into suggesting. Not that it had been difficult—Edward knew he’d always been too gullible, too easy to talk into things, even if that awareness didn’t actually make him any less susceptible as he suspected it should. He’d agreed with Le Vesconte nearly as soon as he’d started talking, thinking maybe a faster pace could save them. He’d even spared some thoughts for the sick before that meeting, convincing himself that perhaps it would be a mercy to leave them—after all, he knew that he would hate to think that the other men hadn’t made it out because they were looking after him instead of themselves. He bore enough responsibility for the deaths on the expedition anyway, he had no desire to take on more. And it seemed to be painful to be dragged in the moving sledges, had been for Captain Fitzjames, at least.

All his burgeoning conviction that he was doing the right thing had fallen apart the moment Jopson had looked at him with betrayal on his face. Edward had never been so ashamed of himself, not even when he’d had to admit to the captains that he’d allowed the armory to be opened against their explicit orders. He was still surprised that both Crozier and Fitzjames had remained silent about Edward’s inadvertent role in the mutiny during their court martial, merely stating that he had arrived at the scene shortly before Fitzjames had but too late to stop the issuance of arms. In doing so, they had almost certainly saved his career.

Edward wasn’t sure that he would ever do anything with the mercy they had extended him, which only made him feel worse. But if he were to go to sea again, the promotion he’d been granted while they were gone had made it so that he would be in command of his own ship, an idea he knew faintly would have brought him joy several years ago, even though it also would have kept him awake at nights with worry. Edward couldn’t imagine finding it within himself to make so many decisions every day, to give orders to other men, even if all went well. And if not all went well—he didn’t know if he could bear the thought of being responsible for the lives of others again, not after he had failed over half of the men on this last expedition so miserably.

For God’s sake, he hadn’t even been able to bring the men under his direct command out safely—John was gone, left in a shallow grave on King William’s Island with nothing but a few of his paintings and Edward and Crozier’s deepest apologies to give to his family, and while George had survived, Edward recognized the haunted look in his eyes from his own reflection and rather doubted that he would ever be the same again either. Perhaps George—and John, if he could read where he was—would find themselves in the same words he did; he couldn’t read “nec mandata dabo, nec cum clamore supremo/labentes oculos condet amica manus;/sed sine funeribus caput hoc, sine honore sepulcri/indeploratum barbara terra teget,” without thinking of John.3

He should write to George. He had no idea what he might say to him, for there was little on his mind except their expedition and this poetry, and somehow he doubted either of those were subjects that George might wish to discuss, but Edward owed him something. They were friends, after all, or at least they had been before George had been kidnapped and Edward had withdrawn so far into himself that he thought he might never emerge again, and of all people Edward thought George might understand best the way that John haunted his every thought, even if George didn’t also feel the same way about every other man they had lost. He and John had been close, and he and Edward shared the awful experience of burying Irving alone while the rest of command guarded Hickey and Tozer and prepared for the hanging. George had finished the short service when Edward’s voice had broken too badly to continue, though neither of them were entirely certain of what they were doing. There hadn’t really been time for a service, Captain Crozier had ordered them merely to see to it that he was buried, but without needing to speak about it Edward and George had agreed that letting John go without the closest thing they could manage to a proper Christian burial would be cruel.

He really ought to write to him. There were a lot of people to whom Edward ought to write: relatives, friends from before the expedition (some who had written him several letters he couldn’t bring himself to read, some who avoided his eyes if he passed them when he was forced out into public), what remained of their expedition’s command, other captains and officers he knew who might be able to find positions for the surviving crew of the expedition. Edward might not be able to shower them in gold as they deserved, but he owed them whatever help he could provide, if only he could bring himself to pick up a pen.

Edward set down his book, determined that he would do something. He’d start with writing to George—the man was so awkward himself that he couldn’t possibly fault Edward if his writing was stilted and his manners rusty from lack of use. He could share news of his siblings, since he had no news of his own. George had no reason to care, but hopefully he would see it as the polite attempt at reaching out that Edward meant it as and realize he was trying.

Three failed attempts at a letter later, Edward was interrupted by a knock on the door of the study. “Yes?” he asked, with a flash of guilt. He’d been monopolizing the room since returning home, and it was entirely possible that his mother or one of his siblings required use of it.

Edward’s sister opened the door and stuck her head in, smiling brightly. “You have a visitor,” she said happily, as Edward hurriedly dragged a hand through his hair and straightened up slightly, glancing down at his clothes to make certain that they were at least clean. Thankfully, they were.

“Was I expecting…” Edward trailed off, realizing the question was entirely too revealing of his current forgetful state if the visitor could hear him, not to mention rather rude.

“No, I’m afraid I’m entirely uninvited,” Jopson said, nodding at Edward’s sister in gratitude as she opened the door for him and then left with a pleading look at Edward, letting the door swing shut behind her.

“Ah,” Edward said, blinking at him in surprise for a moment before remembering his manners. “I’m sorry, take a seat wherever you’d like. Do you want something to eat or drink? Tea?”

Jopson shook his head, sitting on the couch Edward had been curled up on earlier and glancing curiously at the worn copy of the _Tristia_ , though he made no move to pick it up. “No, thank you,” he said, looking at Edward intently.

Edward simply stared at him for a moment longer, thrown off balance by the sight of Jopson in his home. He had always thought Jopson to be the most beautiful thing in the Arctic, the only beautiful thing after they had become beset in the pack and he had grown to hate first the ice, and then everything else, culminating in the night he had looked up at the aurora and waited for a sense of wonder that never came. Even when Jopson had been glaring at him and making Edward feel smaller than he ever had before, even when Jopson had grown visibly sick, Edward still found him beautiful. He was no less beautiful now, in much better surroundings, not only because he had clearly recovered from his illness. There was also no trace of the anger he’d had in his eyes every time Edward had dared to meet his eyes after that fateful command meeting. It was that absence of anger that gave Edward the courage to ask, “May I ask why you’re here? You are, of course, welcome,” he added hurriedly. He didn’t much wish for anyone’s company right now, but Jopson’s certainly seemed easier to bear than that of his siblings or of any of his other friends.

“No one’s heard from you since the court martial,” Jopson said. “At least, no one that either of the captains has been in contact with. I volunteered to come see why, since I have no pressing reason to be in London right now and the captains keep being expected at social events. Besides, if Captain Crozier had come to ask after you, you would have been obliged to host him and the entire Ross family. We thought this may be easier.”

“I’ve meant to write,” Edward said apologetically, gesturing at the abandoned drafts of letters all over the desk. “I’m sorry, if I’d known anyone would worry—”

“Of course we all worried,” Jopson said. “How could we not?”

“We’re back home now, there should be nothing to worry about,” Edward said weakly.

“And yet you look as tired as you did when we were hauling for twelve hours a day and barely eating.”

“I’ve been sleeping even less than I was,” Edward admitted.

Jopson nodded and tilted his head. He looked as if he had been sleeping well—though he had looked put together even during the worst of Crozier’s recovery, when Edward knew he hadn’t had the time to sleep or eat, so that didn’t necessarily mean he was well. “You haven’t been sleeping and you haven’t been writing any of us,” he said, “so what have you been doing?”

Edward ignored the question, too stuck on “us.” “Did you want me to write to you?” he blurted out, immediately feeling like a foolish schoolgirl.

“Yes,” Jopson said simply. “I seem to recall you telling me once that you considered me a friend, sir. I was under the impression that friends generally write to one another, assuming, of course, that you meant it.”

Edward winced. “Don’t. Don’t call me ‘sir.’ Of course I meant it. I just… I haven’t been able to bring myself to write anyone, but I thought that you, of all people, wouldn’t want to hear from me.”

“Why?” Jopson asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“What I suggested in that command meeting,” Edward said, bowing his head and staring intently at the carpet, hoping desperately that Jopson would understand which one he meant and not ask for clarification, not ask him to repeat that awful suggestion again.

“You thought I’d still be angry about that?”

“You’re not?”

“Perhaps a little,” Jopson conceded. “But it was clear even an hour later that you regretted the suggestion, and nothing ever came of it.” Edward found the courage somehow to look up at Jopson, trying to discern from his face if he meant what he said. “I’m not in the habit of lying, Edward,” Jopson said gently.

“Unless you deem it necessary.”

“And there’s no need for it now. Have you been reading any of your letters?”

Edward cast a guilty look at the basket someone, probably their maid, had set on the small side table to keep his letters from falling all over the floor. “I’ve read some,” he said, which was true. Once every few days, he’d find the energy to read a letter, though he nearly always ran out of energy merely after reading the ones he couldn’t afford to ignore—letters from the Admiralty, and from his aunt, who he knew from experience as a boy would show up and interrogate him in person if he failed to respond to her letters in a timely manner. He was probably going to receive one of those visits from her soon—he was relatively certain that he hadn’t responded to the most recent letter, and it had been at least a week. He’d prefer a dozen more visits from Jopson, even if he could apparently see straight through him.

“Clearly not many, or you would have noticed that there are several from me in that pile, which I think even you would realize is a sign that I’m not opposed to speaking to you again.”

“I’m sorry,” Edward said helplessly.

“It’s alright,” Jopson said, gesturing for Edward to come join him on the couch. Edward went obediently, only realizing after he had sat down that it was perhaps a touch odd for him to follow Jopson’s commands in his own home. “It was hardly possible to be offended once I heard that you haven’t been responding to any letters.”

Edward nodded and said, “I’ve been reading. Well, part of the time. It’s…” he paused, trying to think of how to explain the hours of time he lost each day with no idea how he’d spent them, the additional hours he spent trying to talk himself into getting out of bed, into eating, into writing a single sentence. “It’s about the only thing I actually do,” he said finally, hoping it was an adequate explanation.

Jopson nodded. “That’s the book you’re reading right now, then?” he asked, tilting his head toward the _Tristia_. “What’s it about?”

“I’ve been reading it almost since we got back, over and over again,” Edward admitted, picking up the book and rubbing his thumb over the cover, a habit he’d picked up that was already having a slight effect on the binding. “It’s Ovid, are you familiar?” Jopson shook his head, watching Edward with enough interest that he felt he ought to continue. “He was an ancient Roman, wrote some very famous love poetry and poetry about myth, but this is about his exile, to the shores of the Black Sea. It feels familiar, now.”

“You’re not in exile, you’re home,” Jopson pointed out gently. Edward sighed, flipping to the passage that felt truest to him, about the land of punishment, and contemplating if he should read it out loud, if then perhaps he might be able to bring Jopson to understand.

“My state of mind feels more appropriate for exile than for home,” he said eventually. “Like we’re still there?” “Worse,” Edward admitted, blinking back the tears that sprung to his eyes without his permission. “At least we had purpose, and there were still living men under our command to worry about. Now that we’re home, all I can think of are the dead, and the ice.” _Heu quam vicina est ultima terra mihi_ 4

“And not the living?”

“I know I still have my duties to them,” Edward said, thinking of the beginnings of letters of recommendation he had written for several of the men, the other letters he had begun to write to some of the men he didn’t know as well, inquiring what sort of ship they might want to obtain a position on.

“I know you care about them beyond a sense of duty,” Jopson said, reaching out and placing his hand on Edward’s knee. Edward stared at Jopson’s hand in shock, unable to believe it was there even as he could feel the warmth of his hand start to seep through his trousers. “That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you.”

“Oh?” Edward managed. Jopson nodded, rubbing Edward’s knee soothingly. “It doesn’t do anyone any good for you to be shut up here, reading the same book of poetry over and over again, least of all you.”

“I know,” Edward said, curling up with the leg Jopson wasn’t touching to his chest and looping his arms around it, even though it was improper. “I just can’t seem to do anything else.”

“Have you talked to anyone about this?” Jopson asked.

Edward laughed, resting his forehead on his knee. “No, of course not. How could I? I don’t want my sisters knowing how bad it was, I don’t believe my brothers would understand, and even if I could talk to someone, I would have to stick to the story we gave the Admiralty.”

“All good reasons,” Jopson said. “Which is why you should have written one of us back. You forget, there are still forty other living men who know exactly how bad it was and know what we didn’t tell the Admiralty.”

“Only forty, though,” Edward said, guilt aching in his chest. “And forty men who might have gone through a lot less if we’d been better officers in the first place—if I’d been a better officer.”

“Edward. Look at me.” Edward obediently lifted his head and looked. Jopson’s eyes had a hard glint in them that reminded Edward suddenly and viscerally of the look on his face when Crozier had admitted how ill he was about to be. “None of the deaths were your fault,” Jopson said firmly. “Not a one. We were frozen in because of Sir John’s misjudgment, and what followed was misfortune, Dr. Stanley, or Hickey. You did all you could.”

Edward nodded, unable to hold back some of the tears this time. “Come here,” Jopson said softly, adjusting himself on the couch and holding his arms open for Edward. He let himself tip forward into Jopson and buried his face in his shoulder, trying desperately to steady his breathing and stop himself from crying. “I won’t think less of you for crying,” Jopson said, rubbing Edward’s back soothingly.

Edward wasn’t certain if Jopson’s reassurance was what finally broke down the last of his resolve or if it was the way he pulled Edward just a bit closer, but regardless, he found himself sobbing into Jopson’s shoulder, letting himself cry freely for the first time since they had reached England.

Eventually, the tears stopped, and Edward took a few steadying breaths before reluctantly sitting up, though he stayed closer to Jopson than perhaps he should have. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, reaching for his pocket in the hope of finding a handkerchief but barely managed to move his hand before Jopson produced one from somewhere and began to clean Edward’s face, holding him still with his other hand. “You don’t have to—”

“Let me take care of you, Edward?” Jopson asked. “Please?” Edward shut his mouth and sat still as Jopson finished wiping off his face, crumpling and pocketing the soiled handkerchief when he was done. “You should have some water,” he said, rubbing a thumb gently across Edward’s cheekbone. “I’m sure your head must ache, after that.”

“Not much,” Edward said, reeling from the casual, tender way in which Jopson touched him.

His confusion must have shown on his face, because Jopson froze in the middle of trailing his hand down Edward’s arm before laughing and taking one of Edward’s hands. “Did you think I never noticed the way you looked at me?” Jopson asked, a spark of amusement in his eyes that Edward had thought he’d never see again.

Edward tried to speak with no success for a moment, his mind racing. “I. You. What?”

“This probably isn’t the best time, but I’ve felt for you at least as long as you have for me,” Jopson said, smiling ruefully and squeezing Edward’s hand. “I’m sorry, I thought you must have had at least some idea, I wasn’t being particularly subtle, but there was no time or privacy to say anything after we left the ships, and then, well, you decided to disappear.”

“Oh,” Edward said faintly, muted joy breaking through the exhaustion from crying and the fog that still clouded his brain, though some of it had cleared, washed away by the catharsis of crying properly for the first time in months. “No, I hadn’t noticed.” He paused for a moment, and then threw caution to the wind, deciding he had nothing to lose. “May I kiss you, then?”

Jopson grinned and leaned forward, kissing Edward slowly and warmly. Edward made a small noise of discontent when Jopson pulled away, but refrained from pulling him into another kiss when Jopson murmured, “Probably best not to do more with that door unlocked.”

“Probably,” Edward agreed, his heart skipping a beat at the thought of more. “Does that mean you’d like—I mean, could we—”

“I’m sure we can find ourselves some privacy one of these days,” Jopson said, glancing at the door before kissing Edward again quickly. “If you go to sea again, your cabin should do nicely.”

Edward winced at the reminder of his career. “I’m not sure I can captain a ship right now,” he said. “Not when I can’t keep up with my mail.”

“And in case you’ve already forgotten, that’s what you’ll have lieutenants for, and I’d very much like to be one of them.”

It took a moment for Edward to fully comprehend that statement, and then he found himself grinning involuntarily, the smile feeling foreign on his face. “They let you sit the exam?”

Jopson ducked his head with a grin.

“Congratulations,” Edward said, prouder than he thought he’d ever been before.

“You’re not going to ask if I passed?” Jopson asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Of course you did,” Edward said, his cheeks starting to ache from smiling. “As if you could do anything else.”

Jopson laughed and stood up, offering Edward a hand. “Let’s start with the mail, then?” he asked. “I’ll help, and maybe there’ll be a letter in there offering you a ship.”

Edward took his hand and let Jopson pull him up off the couch and over to the pile of letters.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I am not who I was (Ovid, _Tristia_ 3.11.25) Back  
> 2\. Yet while I, uncertain, was being tossed about on lands and waves, labor was driving away my cares and my sick heart: now when the journey has been finished and the work of journeying has ended, and I have touched the land of my punishment, nothing is pleasing except to cry, and the shower from my eyes is no more sparing than the water which flows from spring snow (Ovid, _Tristia_ 3.2.15-20) Back  
> 3\. And I will not utter last words, a dear hand will not shut my eyes with a last cry of mourning; but without funeral rites, without the honor of a tomb, a barbarian land will hide this unwept head (Ovid, _Tristia_ 3.3.43-46) Back  
> 4\. Oh how near the farthest land is to me (Ovid, _Tristia_ 3.4.52) Back
> 
> The title translates to: "but the snow having been melted by spring sun is felt by me" (Ovid, _Tristia_ 3.12.27).
> 
> All translations are my own, the Latin text is from the Loeb edition of Ovid's _Tristia_. Edward was originally supposed to be reading it in English, but I didn't like any of the pre-1850 translations I could find.


End file.
